Strictly Come Dancing 2012: show three review

"Welcome to Strictly Come Dancing," said Sir Bruce Forsyth at the start of last night's show. "The only place where Lycra, fake tan and sequins can turn you into a real man."

Lisa Riley and Robin Windsor on Strictly Come DancingPhoto: BBC

By David Thomas

10:35PM BST 06 Oct 2012

That must have come as a relief to Johnny Ball, 74, the television presenter, who had been gussied up in a pink-spotted black shirt embellished with a shiny pink satin tie.

But even he and Colin Salmon, the actor, who on Friday was in what looked like leopard-print chiffon, were as nothing compared with the ladies.

Having been accused of excessive skirt-wafting during her Friday dance, Fern Britton arrived looking like a big, blue-fringed lampshade. And Lisa Riley came down the stairs like a human space hopper.

Victoria Pendleton had, thank goodness, stemmed the flow of tears from her disastrously flat-footed Friday night performance. The Olympic cyclist brought her weepy persona from the velodrome to the ballroom, but sadly not her world-beating talent.

And then, of course, there was Jerry Hall. The pre-show publicity had portrayed her as a fabulously glamorous, but lazy, ciggie-smoking diva.

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For her debut dance, though, she was channelling her inner Gloria Swanson. In a slinky black gown and furry white stole, the perennial supermodel was definitely ready for her close-up.

As the dancing began, singer Kimberley Walsh's cha-cha-cha demonstrated the cruel truth that you can't beat youth, beauty and years of stage experience. "Oh Kim, you definitely know how to sell it," exulted judge Bruno Tonioli.

Twenty-four hours earlier, he had been telling cricketer Michael Vaughan: "Your butt stuck out like a hanging basket and your face looked like Shane Warne after the makeover."

And then there was new judge Darcey Bussell, yah, who actually provided useful advice, yah, but had an incredibly annoying verbal tic, yah, which made her say the word "yah", yah.

Here's another certain bet: Darcey's going to get a bit of stick for that tic. Yah.

Back on the dance floor, EastEnders star Sid Owen was so short Ola Jordan had to wear low heels not to tower over him, but his waltz, as Len Goodman put it, took him "from Albert Square to Berkeley Square". Ball followed his partner, Iveta Lukosiute, round the floor like an aged Benny Hill.

Dani Harmer, the actress, and Richard Arnold, the critic, gave the most instantly forgettable performances, while Hall didn't really dance at all. She just exuded, magnificently. "I'm starting gently and working the whole way up," said her delirious partner Anton du Beke.

Olympic gymnast Louis Smith came on with a body the male professionals would kill for, did one-armed handstands one minute and the splits the next and had Miss Bussell blushing like a teenager on a hot date with Justin Bieber.

But none of them held a candle to the woman who picked up Strictly, tucked it into her ample bosom and bounced away with the show.

She had gusto. She had style. She is clearly going to rake in the popular vote every week.

And in Craig Revel-Horwood's three-word judgment: "You. Can. Dance."

So forget youth and beauty. Lisa Riley, 36, the former Emmerdale actress, is going to take an awful lot of beating if anyone else wants to grab the glitterball.